Cognitive Dissonance is a defense mechanism that most people have when core beliefs are challenged. People automatically close themselves down to ideas that can revolutionize their perception of life. For instance if you speak to someone who firmly believes that the world is flat and try to convince him or her that the opposite is true…you would encounter Cognitive Dissonance.

Who is the “Moral Minority”?

Before we used to call them the “Moral Majority” and they were the decision makers of old. To be quite frank, the “moral majority” were people who initially voted for slavery and the “moral majority” can also be thanked for the prolonging of the drug war.

But as time continues we are noticing a trend occur. The moral majority is quickly fading into the moral minority as logic and reason start becoming the deciding factor in public policy. Before, and still largely today, morality has become the tools of manipulation by political heads. They use core beliefs and religious association to influence this demographic of “moralists” to use their voting power to promote political agenda.

As the world embraced technology and information became more available “morality” started being questioned. Morality in essence is merely a personal perspective on an external situation. Some people think it immoral for women to wear skirts while others find it immoral for use strong language. Some people even believe that watching certain types of movies or listening to certain type of music is immoral. If they would have their way book burnings, lynching and the works would be back for business.

Why should Morality govern law?

What is moral for you might not be moral for me. How can morality then even be considered an element within the law making process? Morality is subjective and changes with time meaning that what was immoral today can be moral tomorrow.

Something so unstable, so malleable should never be a reason to make a law. Morality in terms of gay marriage, marijuana consumption and drug consumption for that matter, birth control, abortion and so forth should not be a reason to criminalize people.

The change in paradigm

Luckily people are waking up to the fact that morals should have nothing to do with law and more and more people are starting to vote with logic and reason. When we void ourselves of moral decisions and allow for clear cut unhindered scientific approaches we begin to realize that morality expresses itself in the respect of the freedom of others.

If you find marijuana consumption immoral…then don’t do it. It is immoral to dictate morals to other people. Just think about that for a bit.

An Update On The Harborside Health Center Legal Battle

By Steve DeAngelo, Executive Director, Harborside Health Center

Harborside Health Center (HHC) was one of the first of hundreds of dispensaries targeted in the federal crackdown on medical cannabis. Unlike many others, we had the determination and the resources to fight back, and we have been doing that–hitting back hard. If our luck holds, and our legal team prevails, we could well become the last dispensary they decide to tangle with. Continue reading →

The state Liquor Control Board has an interesting job in the year ahead: to get into the weeds of how marijuana is grown, sold and used.

By The Seattle Times – Monday, December 3 2012

Washington voters’ decision to legalize marijuana means the state Liquor Control Board (LCB) now has a year to set regulations for the first-of-its-kind marijuana market.

But first, the small state agency must go on an even stranger mission — to get into the, well, weeds of how marijuana is grown, sold and used. I hope that the people give them hell for NOW trying to profit from it all lol.

At a hearing on Friday before a state Senate committee, Pat Kohler, the LCB director, said the agency would need to hire a consultant — a pot expert — to gather input from key groups of police, farmers, users and others to help her staff better “understand the product and the industry itself.”

The agency has been getting a lot of advice, said Rick Garza, Kohler’s deputy. “There’s a lot of people who think they have a lot of experience in this area,” Garza said, prompting laughs from lawmakers.

The voter-approved Initiative 502 requires the LCB to license and regulate a seed-to-store closed marijuana market, with the first licenses to be issued in late 2013. Based on a state fiscal analysis, it will be a big market: 363,000 users consuming 187,000 pounds of marijuana each year, with steep sin taxes generating more than $560 million a year.

The Washington State Liquor Control Board says it needs to hire 40 additional staff and bring an outside expert in marijuana to implement the voter-approved marijuana legalization measure.

In a briefing to a Senate committee in Olympia on Friday, LCB director Pat Kohler said the biggest challenge of setting up a regulated marijuana market was “understanding the product and the industry itself.”

“There’s a lot of people who think they have a lot of experience in this area,” joked Rick Garza, Kohler’s deputy.

The LCB is taking the lead in creating rules for state-licensed marijuana stores, growers and processors called for in Initiative 502, which passed 56-44 on Nov. 6. Friday’s hearing was the first chance for lawmakers to ask questions about the historic measure.

Kohler estimated there could be 328 stores – the same number of liquor stores under the now-defunct state liquor monopoly – but her staff needed to better understand potential customer demand, among other things. A state fiscal analysis predicted that 363,000 state residents would buy from the state stores, based on federal use surveys.

I really hope they dont try to set up some stereotypical stoner kid to be the “expert”. It SHOULD be a middle aged, regular consumer, who has struggled with other health problems or even addictions and overcome them. Someone who has done hours upon hours of research and study into the effects of medicinal uses, habitual use, as well as occasional “social” use. My fear is that they will appoint a bunch of cops to regulate it, and politicians to commercialize it.
They should be professional, knowledgeable, and intelligent.

Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) and Common Toxicity Criteria (CTC).

A key element of the reorientation of toxicity testing is the way in which adverse effects are understood, the topic of this post. Currently, the adverse effects “credible publications” are manipulated by the gov .. why?!?? Answer: corruption/profit. This should cease and desist, humans should not be hurt & abused for profits in a republic where democracy thrives and justice prevails.

The government sayes its a schedule I , that is to say it has no medical use . But the synthetic form of THC, the main chemical ingredient in the cannabis plant is curently classified as schedule III, a prescribed pill trademarked as marinol.

Medical Marijuana has now been decriminalized in 16 U.S. states & in Cannada.

The American Medical Association & American College of Physicians have both called on the federal government to review cannabis as a schdule I substance.

The National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institute of health, added cannabis to its website last year as a Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM), & recoginzed that,”Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years prior to its current status as an illegal substance.” It also has a 80% approval rating among Americans according to several polls.

It was a little over a year ago when the United States Department of Justice announced that it would back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients and providers who are acting in accordance with state and local laws.

“As a general matter, pursuit of [federal law enforcement] priorities should not focus federal resources … on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana,” The DOJ announced on October 19, 2009. “For example, prosecution of individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen consistent with applicable state law, or those caregivers in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law who provide such individuals with marijuana, is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources.”

Apparently Michelle Leonhart, President Obama’s nominee to direct the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, didn’t get the memo.

Speaking yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on day one of her Senate confirmation process, Leonhart pledged to ignore the administration’s formal medical marijuana guidelines.

[excerpt] Acting director Michele Leonhart is that much closer to officially heading up the Drug Enforcement Agency after successfully navigating a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

If confirmed to the position she’s already held for three years, Leonhart said she would expand the DEA’s anti-cartel operations in Mexico and continue to enforce federal drug laws in states where medical marijuana is legal.

… Perhaps due to the failure of Prop 19 in California (and despite the passage of medical marijuana in Arizona), Kohl, along with Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Al Franken of Minnesota, made no mention of medical marijuana. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, however, made it his prime focus.

“I’m a big fan of the DEA,” said Sessions, before asking Leonhart point blank if she would fight medical marijuana legalization.

“I have seen what marijuana use has done to young people, I have seen the abuse, I have seen what it’s done to families. It’s bad,” Leonhart said. “If confirmed as administrator, we would continue to enforce the federal drug laws.”

“These legalization efforts sound good to people,” Sessions quipped. “They say, ‘We could just end the problem of drugs if we could just make it legal.’ But any country that’s tried that, Alaska and other places have tried it, have failed. It does not work,” Sessions said.

“We need people who are willing to say that. Are you willing to say that?” Sessions asked Leonhart.

“Yes, I’ve said that, senator. You’re absolutely correct [about] the social costs from drug abuse, especially from marijuana,” Leonhart said. “Legalizers say it will help the Mexican cartel situation; it won’t. It will allow states to balance budgets; it won’t. No one is looking [at] the social costs of legalizing drugs.”

It is shocking to learn that not a single Senator who attended the hearing, in particular Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, had the courage to demand that Ms. Leonhart respect the laws of the 15 states that have legalized the use of marijuana as a medicine. In the case of Sen. Whitehouse, his own state is now in the process of licensing state-certified marijuana providers and distributors; yet he appears to have no problem with the idea of appointing a federal official who declares her intention to put his own constituents in federal prison.

It gets even more disturbing. In the days leading up to Wednesday’s initial confirmation hearing, acoalition of advocacy groups — including NORML, Americans for Safe Access, and others called on members of the Senate Judiciary to ask Ms. Leonhart tough questions regarding her public record, one that is incompatible with state laws, public opinion, and with the policies of this administration. Yet not a single Senator did so.

There is a growing divide between state and federal law concerning the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and it would only take members of the Senate — or Ms. Leonhart for that matter — a cursory scan of today’s google headlines to see it:

As we’ve written before, as Interim DEA director, Ms. Leonhart has overseen dozens of federal raids on medical marijuana providers, producers, and laboratory facilities that engage in the testing of cannabis potency and quality. Yesterday Ms. Leonhart pledged to continue these actions — actions that violate this administration’s own written policies, and more importantly, actions that target the civilians of fifteen states and the District of Columbia. These people are the constituents of 30 percent of the U.S. Senate; yet not even one of these elected officials appears willing to speak up for them. That is disgraceful.

Want to write or call your Senator about Ms. Leonhart’s nomination process? You can still do so here and here.

William Randolph Hearst was a leading newspaperman whose influence on politics reached far and wide. In this video with Kenneth Whyte, author of The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst,http://www.WatchMojo.com learns more about his involvement and influence in leading the United States into war against Spain over Cuba in the Spanish-American war.

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This guy is insulting the intelligence of the American public… He probably thinks that we went to Iraq spread democracy or fight terrorism instead of trying to get control of their Oil… or we had a war with Mexico to remember El Alamo instead of taking their lands all the way to California… or that we created the country of Panama to save them from being a province of Colombia instead or our interest of constructing a canal… sure… we are always the good guys…

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BULLSHYT, Research “Francisco Vicente Aguilera”…. USA took advantage and stole money and all sorts of bonds (CORPORATIONS< SUGAR PLANTATIONS, planned to be run by secret CIA operatives including but not limited to Castro and many other uneducated minions) and gold/jewels to pretend they were going to help! WOW FRAUD IN HISTORY… AMERICA SUCKS!!!! BORN AND RAISED IN DADE AND EVERYDAY MORE BULLSHYT FLOATS UP TO THE LIGHT!!!

@Choblik they believed that William Randolph Hearst was the starting point of the war, he used yellow journalism, or simply propaganda to bring in the citizens at that time. People then thought did the Spanish fleet actually destroy the USS Maine? then a group of scuba divers dived in to check on the ship and it turned out the thermodynamic engine exploded which maybe a cause of the explosion on the ship 😦